Lara Bergen: Sophie the Snoop

Suddenly, a screechy voice rang out. It made Sophie’s ears hurt. It also made her heart leap — all the way up to her throat.

The voice belonged to Mindy. And she was saying, “Someone stole my phone!”

At last — a real mystery!

The Case of the Missing Phone!

Well, lip-gloss phone. But that was even better, in Sophie’s opinion.

Sophie dashed back to the row of cubbies. Mindy’s was near the end. Mindy was pulling all her stuff out. Her best friend, Lily Lemley, was catching it.

“Don’t worry, Mindy. It’s got to be in there somewhere,” Lily said.

“Oh, no, it doesn’t,” Mindy huffed. “My mother told me some jealous girl might take it.” She glared at the other kids. “And she was right.”

Quickly, the whole class gathered around. Ms. Steele was busy writing on the board.

Sophie stepped up in front of Mindy. “This is a case for Sophie the Snoop if there ever was one!” she declared.

Mindy looked up at her with squinty eyes. Her lips got tight and pinched. “You! I saw the way you looked at my phone. Give it back!” She held out her hand.

“Huh? Who? Me?” Sophie shook her head. “I’m not the thief!” she said. She held up her magnifying glass. “I’m here to solve this mystery!”

Mindy leaned back. “Oh, yeah?” She cocked her head.

At the same time, Lily leaned forward. “Thanks, but no thanks, Sophie. We don’t need your help,” she said.

Sophie sighed.

Okay. Fine. It wasn’t like she really wanted to help them. She was just jumping in because that was what detectives did. (And because maybe if she found the lip-gloss phone, Mindy would let her try it.)

But then Mindy frowned at Lily. “Speak for yourself,” she said. “Go ahead, Sophie. Find it. And hurry! My lips are getting dry.”

Sophie smiled with satisfaction. But she also had to roll her eyes. Snooping for snooty Mindy was not going to be an easy job.

“Okay. Everybody step away from the crime scene,” she announced.

But just as she flipped open her notebook, Sophie heard another voice — Dean’s.

“Hey! My trading cards! They were in my cubby. But now they’re not!” he said.

Then Ben exclaimed, “Tweety! My Tweety Bird! He’s gone!”

And so was Sophie A.’s brand-new chapter book.

And Grace’s shiny new shoes. (They were the only shoes she’d worn since she’d gotten them. Except during gym. Then Grace changed into sneakers and left her new shoes in room 10.)

There was only one answer to these mysteries. And the answer made Sophie’s heart race.

She looked around at her classmates. “I, Sophie the Snoop, suspect that a thief has been in our room!”

A few kids gasped.

“This is awful!” Sophie A. said.

Sophie nodded. She agreed … but she also thought it was great!

In fact, it was almost a snoop’s dream come true. Sophie bet Sherlock Holmes never had so many mysteries to solve all at once!

“We should really tell Ms. Steele,” Grace said calmly. She turned to the front of the room.

What?

“No!” Sophie gasped. “I can solve these mysteries all by myself!” What kind of snoop would she be if she asked a sub for help?

“Are you sure?” Ben asked. “I really need my Tweety back.”

Sophie stood up very straight. “Sure, I’m sure,” she said.

That was when Ms. Steele called, “Um … what’s taking you all so long? Find your workbooks quickly. We, um, have a lot of work to get done.”

Sophie grinned a big snoop grin.

And the world’s biggest case to crack, too ! she thought.

Uh-oh.

Sophie had a problem. A big one.

The problem was that it was hard to crack the world’s biggest case when a substitute teacher was watching you every second!

“Um … excuse me. But what are you doing?” Ms. Steele asked.

Sophie was crouched next to Mindy’s cubby. She had rubber gloves on and held her magnifying glass in one hand. She had just covered Mindy’s cubby with baby powder so she could dust for fingerprints. But something about the way Ms. Steele looked at her made Sophie say, “Nothing.”

The rest of the students were doing their spelling. They all turned around. Mindy let out a small “Agh!” when she saw the baby powder all over her cubby. Everyone else just laughed.

“Well … it looks to me like you’ve made a big mess. Um … please clean it up and get back to work?” Ms. Steele said.

Sophie sighed and cleaned up the powder (or did the best she could). So much for finding fingerprints. Still, she did have some good evidence in her plastic bags.

She had one very curly blond hair. And a very long black one. And part of a wrapper from a blue crayon. And a bent paper clip. And one butterscotch Life Saver. Sophie was pretty sure it had never been licked. As soon as this case was closed, she might even think about eating it.

Sophie tiptoed back to her seat and tried to do a little work. But all she could think about was the mystery. (Well, that and how gross Toby was.)

She flipped open her notebook and wrote

The Case of the Room 10 Thief.

Then she listed the clues she had so far. But they just didn’t make sense!

At last, she put the tip of her pencil on her paper again. She pressed down hard . Snap ! The tip broke off. Sophie slipped her notebook into her pocket. Then she stood up again.

“Um … what are you doing now ?” Ms. Steele asked right away.

Sophie held up her pencil. She pointed toward the front of the room. “I’m going to the pencil sharpener,” she coolly told the sub. To see if the thief left any clues there ! she added in her head.

Sophie tiptoed across the room slowly. Her eyes darted all around. She watched her classmates working silently. Did one of them do it? Could one of them have done such a dastardly deed? Was this the beginning of a life of crime, maybe?

Suddenly, Sophie heard a sneeze. She turned. Was it Kate? Did she have a code note for Sophie? Maybe she had some kind of lead!

But no. Kate made an “ew” face. She wiped her arm and scooted her chair back. The sneezer was Dean, sitting next to her. He closed his eyes and sneezed again.

Poor Kate. And her poor paper. It looked like it got wet.

Sophie’s seat, next to Toby, was definitely the worst. But even though Dean was nice, it looked like Kate’s seat was almost as bad.

And poor Sydney, Sophie thought as her eyes moved across the room. She had to sit next to Archie today. That was almost torture!

There was nothing nice about Archie, as far as Sophie could tell. He was loud and rude and he picked his nose. Plus he had that dirty-sock smell.

And not that it mattered, but he also stole friends.

Of course, Sophie didn’t care about that.

Not much, that is.

A thought suddenly hit her. What if Archie was the thief?

Wow! Sophie started to smile. How great would that be?

Then she could tell Principal Tate. And he could kick Archie out of school. Then Archie could never pick on Sophie — or anybody else.

And he could never, ever go and steal another friend…

Not that Sophie cared about that.

Not much, that is.

But a snoop had to work with the facts. Hopes were not enough, she knew. Sophie needed to make a list of suspects and their motives. (“Motives” was a word for “reasons,” she was pretty sure.)

Sophie pulled out her notebook so she could write Archie’s motives down. But — oh, yeah — she still had not sharpened her pencil. She could not write until she did. So she kept tiptoeing slowly toward the pencil sharpener and made a quick list in her head instead.